Poisoned Slumber
by Bree Colbern
Summary: Protecting teammates was definitely something Steve Rogers knew about, and he knew that it was never easy. But doing that while being shot, and having several broken bones, made the case even worse. Not to mention he's pretty sure there's something horribly wrong with his leg. And then add an old enemy into the equation, and well, he certainly has his work cut out for him.


**Here's another story! Please R &R and enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: If I owned Marvel, there would be about a dozen Captain America movies...**

* * *

Steve gritted his teeth and bit back a groan as he gingerly hauled himself up off the ground. He looked around at the destruction around him of the small town the three of them had been called into to fight some rogue robots.

He looked down at his Shield, which had several scrapes in the paint color. Confused as to what had just happened he slipped it onto his back, and that's when he remembered.

Reality crashed into him with it's unrelenting power and he frantically started looking around under the debris for his lost teammates. They had been fighting an army of robots when Steve had decided to do a sacrifice play...

* * *

 _"Guys, I've got an idea," Steve said through the comms to Clint and Natasha as he slinked up along side of the wall that was a part of the building where all the robots were spawning._

 _They had been called here about twenty four hours ago, and they were still fighting the robots and it wasn't about to end anytime soon, and if they got out of here, hundreds of people would easily die._

 _Actually, more like thousands and thousands of people. Their communications system was down so they couldn't call in backup._

 _"What is it, Cap?" Clint asked through the comms and Steve took a deep breath._

 _"I'm gonna' use our emergency plan." He said and could immediately feel the two of them tense up._

 _"What? No way, Steve! That's pure suicide!" A struggled voice came through the comms that belonged to Nat. He sighed._

 _"It's not suicide, there is a chance I could make it out alive," He said, even though he knew the chances were very slim. But hey, one life compared to possibly thousands and even his teammates was a pretty good deal._

 _The plan was that incase things would go bad, they would have a bomb that they could stick in the spawner and blow it up, but going in there meant not coming back out._

 _"Cap, you know the risk. Besides, things haven't even gotten that bad! We have to try just a little longer!" Steve shook his head at Clint's statement._

 _"Clint, Natasha, I need to do this, people's lives are in danger, now I'm going in, wish me good luck." He said before he took a deep breath and pulled out the bomb, activating it to go off in three minutes._

 _"Cap, no! Don't! We'll figure something out!" Nat yelled frantically over the comms, but Steve just ignored her and sprung into action._

 _He immediately burst through the door with the bomb, and all the robots were so distracted with him, they never even noticed him stick it to the spawner._

 _He continued punching them and kicking them, fully aware of his limited time to get out. It was of no use, though, he didn't stand a chance against all of these robots._

 _Two of the robots grabbed both of his arms and held him back and beat him with their stupid tazer like things. He tried to fight back, but it was of no use. The electricity felt like it was frying him from the inside out._

 _Suddenly, the door burst open, and the three robots by him fell down, one with an arrow in it's head, and the two others with a bullet in it._

 _"Clint! Natasha! Get out of here!" He yelled, but they continued shooting all the robots, figuring that if their Captain was going down, they would too. One of the robots clung to his leg and he tried to kick it off, but it held on with a razor sharp grip._

 _He ignored the claws that were digging into his skin, even though it hurt like hell. He could feel the sharp edge of his claws start tearing through the flesh and hitting vessels, but he continued ignoring it._

 _He heard the bomb start beeping, and he knew they had somewhere around a ten second window to get out. "Clint, Nat, go!" He yelled, but they never flinched as they kept fighting the fresh round of robots._

 _He somehow managed to crush the robot that held onto his now bleeding and swelling profusely calf, and ran as fast he could to Clint and Natasha._

 _Beep, beep, beep._

 _The beeps went faster and faster, now getting the attention of the dimwitted robots. He grabbed the both of them simultaneously and they all three flew out the door right when hell erupted behind them._

* * *

And that was the last thing he remembered. He started shoving pieces of debris and rubble out of the way searching for his lost teammates. "Clint! Natasha!" He yelled continuously, hoping maybe one of them would answer, but it was just an eery silence as the sun started setting.

He knew he had to find him before the sun set, or none of his searching would be of any use. His leg felt like it was broken while the other felt like it was on fire, but the anxiety and fear of losing his teammates, no, _family_ was sort of overwhelming the pain at the moment.

Ignoring the possibility of another attack from any stray robots, he continued searching, when he saw a familiar bow sticking out from under several pieces of big boulder like rocks and foundation of a building.

A sickening feeling came over him as he cursed under his breath. He weakly started shoving the rocks off, when he suddenly saw a bit of ripped purple material sticking out from under it.

With an extra burst of adrenaline, he shoved the last few remaining rocks and pieces of wood off, to find a bleeding Clint Barton.

His hand immediately went to his neck, and he thanked God that there was a steady pulse. He dusted some of the dirt and debris off of Clint and pulled him up into a sitting position against a big rock.

He checked for injuries, and wasn't so relieved to find a bunch of blood flowing out from his side. He tore off part of his own sleeve and pressed it firmly against the wound. He then wrapped it to his torso with some loose string.

Making sure he was stable enough for now, Steve quickly started looking for Natasha. He climbed over the fence and his breath hitched in his throat when he saw it; Natasha lying on the ground in some blood with wooden beam across her legs.

As he got closer he could see she was still clutching her gun in her hand. He ran over to her, ignoring how his leg bent weirdly and painfully with every step, and knelt down beside her to check for a pulse. It wasn't quite as steady as Clint's, but it was there nonetheless.

He looked over at the beam and sighed; he was going to have to push it off. He wrapped his hands around it, and with a few grunts and groans, he managed to lift it off of her.

He heard a few unhealthy snaps come from his own chest as he set the beam down, but again, he didn't care about the exploding pains as he checked to make sure none of her bones were broken.

He sighed with relief to feel no broken bones. But she did look liked she might have some sort of head injury unfortunately. He looked around and scouted out a small house that looked like it was in fairly good shape.

He carefully picked her up in his arms bridal style, and her whole body just went limp. He started carrying her over to the house, but thankfully Clint was on the way to the house so he wouldn't have to go out of the way to check on him.

He bent down to look at Clint, with Nat still in his arms, who looked fairly good, except the sleeve off of Steve's uniform that he had used as a bandage, was now soaked crimson red.

"Sorry, Clint, I guess I'm old-fashioned," He said as he pushed himself up off the ground, careful not too jostle Natasha much while doing so, and headed over to the house; by now the sun had set and the moon was coming up.

Thankfully, it was almost a full moon so he could see fairly well. He walked through the open doorway cautiously, checking to make sure there were no threats in it, and then he looked around at the small one room shack, and smiled with relief to notice there was a bed intact.

He gently laid her down on it, propping her head up on a pillow, and with one last glance, quickly exited the room and practically ran to Clint.

Steve redid the bandage with his own other sleeve, in fear that it might get cold here at night, he wouldn't want one of the two to get sick or catch something, because that could only make matters worse.

He then carefully picked Clint up in his arms bridal style, and he finally got a reaction out of him as they started going over to the house. He must have accidentally have bumped Clint's wounded side, because he groaned in pain.

"Hey, it's okay, Clint," He said as he entered the house and gently set Clint down on the bed next to Natasha. He cursed at the fact that the communication systems were down and he wouldn't be able to contact S.H.I.E.L.D for help.

But he was glad that S.H.I.E.L.D always had a backup plan that was incase the people didn't get back within forty eight hours, then they would send an emergency team in.

He hobbled out of the doorway, and looked around to make sure no robots or anything were around, before limping back into the house and gently settling himself onto the floor, since the bed was the only piece of furniture in the room.

He took his Shield off of his back and kept it at the ready, incase of a possible attack. He wouldn't be getting much sleep that night.

He noticed how he started feeling sharp, stabbing pains in his chest all of a sudden, and that's when all of the pain settled in. He could feel beads of sweat that wetted his forehead, and he could feel how suddenly his whole body was burning up and he felt like he was boiling from the inside out.

He looked down at his legs and noticed how one leg was bent unhealthily at about a thirty degree angle, and the other was swelled up to about two times the size that it is normally, and it was bleeding profusely and had already turned black and blue.

That must have been where that stupid robot had clung onto with it's life.

He heard a sound of metal lightly clinking on the ground outside of the hut, and quickly stood up with a wince and prepared himself, with his Shield, for attack.

Unfortunately, it was pitch dark in the room and there were absolutely no windows. He halted his breathing to see if he could hear the sound better, and it was louder and definitely closer.

 _Just wait until they make the first move, Steve, it's your only chance of survival_ , his conscience reminded him.

He could practically feel the heat boiling his insides with every second, and he only got hotter and hotter as the day went deeper into the night.

The clinking noise suddenly hit the steps and Steve froze, waiting for the attack, and that's when about six beat-up robots came into the room and saw him. They immediately went for the kill, but he was one step ahead of them.

He slammed his Shield into one's face before jumping up and kicking him into the wall. He landed wrong on his bruised leg, but was thankful it wasn't the broken one as he punched another robots metal face in. He threw his Shield and it took out two others before bouncing off the wall and flying back at Steve who caught it.

He turned around just in time to see a robot holding a gun and firing it several times. He wasn't able to get his Shield up in time and several bullets pierced through his torso, tearing the flesh as it went clean through.

He fell to the ground, but immediately picked himself up, knowing that Nat and Clint were sitting targets to the vengeful robots. "Where the hell did you learn how to shoot guns?" Steve asked as he creamed one robot that was trying to go after Clint and Natasha.

He wasn't expecting a reply from the one still holding the gun.

"It was programmed into us," It replied with a very robotic voice. Steve charged it, holding his Shield up and hearing little pings from the bullets, and as soon as he heard the gun click because it was out of ammo, he tossed his Shield and decapitated the robot.

 _Last one._

Steve took a moment to catch his breath as he looked down at all the mangled metal bodies and noticed the one, that had had a gun, eyes were flickering their normal color red, before shutting off completely.

"Yeah? Was defeat programmed into you, too?" Steve asked uncharacteristically before gingerly walking over to the bed, the pain coming rushing back as the adrenaline was running off again. He checked to make sure they were both all right and weren't injured, before looking back outside again, and then sitting back down, noticing how his bruised leg was going numb and how his stomach hurt like heck.

He placed a hand there, and was unpleasantly surprised to feel a warm sticky substance come onto his hands.

He pulled his hand away and saw the scarlet red all over his hand. He had somehow lost his cowl in the explosion, he noticed as he ran a clean hand through his hair.

He clenched his teeth and laid his head back, staring up at the ceiling while also panting. He hadn't quite gotten his breath back from the fight, and it didn't help that he was in immense pain and felt like he was on fire.

His leg was completely numb, yet he could still feel pain shooting out from the leg. He groaned involuntarily as his head lolled to the side and he squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to rid himself of all the pain in every fiber of his being.

He just ignored the wounds on his stomach, but knew that sometime he'd have to do something about it so he wouldn't bleed to death. Both of his sleeves were gone, so he decided to rip off part of the material on his legs.

He painfully wrapped it around his torso, fully aware of the jabs of pain from his broken ribs. He then went back to resting, so desperately wanting to fall asleep, but knowing he couldn't because someone had to protect Clint and Nat and make sure their condition doesn't worsen at all.

Several hours of pure agony and torture went by, when the sun had started to very slowly peak out over the flat, dry desert land.

Clint and Natasha seemed to being all right, but Steve on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. And then he suddenly heard another metal clinking sound. He internally groaned because he wasn't sure if he'd make it through this fight.

All of his limbs were starting to go stiff against his will, and even breathing was almost too painful. He weakly stood up and prepared himself to fight. His Shield was at the ready when the mechanical sound got closer, and finally hit the steps.

He stood up straighter, wincing from the pain of doing so, and tensed his jaw, preparing himself for the fight. Suddenly, the metal sounds entered the room, and just as Steve was about to deliver a blow to the person, er, robot, with his Shield, he immediately stopped himself and let out a sigh of relief as he leaned on the hand he placed against he wall. "Oh, thank God," he said as the red and gold man looked over at him.

"Whoa, Steve, are you guys all right?" Tony asked as he glanced from Steve to Clint and Natasha. He flipped his faceplate up and Steve could see the worry creased in his brow and the panicked expression on his face, even though it was beginning to get very blurry.

"Clint and Natasha are in serious condition they need medical attention right away." Steve said in his Leader voice as he gingerly moved over to Clint and Natasha.

"I'm on it." Tony said before he flew out of the building, only to return a few moments later with several S.H.I.E.L.D agents with a couple of gurneys.

They immediately loaded Clint and Natasha up and gave them oxygen masks along with hooking them up with IV's. Satisfied that his teammates would receive proper help from here on, Steve felt his whole body visibly relax as he slumped up against the wall, somehow holding himself up off the floor.

"How are you doing? Steve? Steve?" Tony had apparently been saying, but Steve could hardly hear him, or see him as he waved a gauntlet in front of Cap's face. Steve shook his head, trying to rid himself of the heavy fog settling in.

"I-I'm fine," Steve said as he tried to straighten himself. Tony, who had a disbelieving look on his face, looked around the room, to see several broken bodies of robots on the floor. He pointed at them.

"Uh, what is this?"

"Robots, Tony." Steve said sarcastically, his deadpan humor kicking in. He always received that kind of humor when he was trying to cover something up. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I sort of gathered that, Spangles." Tony said in exasperation. "I meant, why are they in here? What, are you collecting them or something?" Steve held back a wince as he shifted on his broken leg; his other leg had gone numb a long time ago.

"They showed up during the night. Look, can we get going?" Steve asked, not in the mood to deal with Tony right now.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Look, are you seriously okay?" Tony asked as he eyed him carefully.

"Yeah," Steve nodded, and he started to try and walk away, only failing miserably when his vision went black and he fell to the ground in a heap of pain. He muttered a few curses under his breath and shook his head, trying to get his eyesight back. IT started coming back in blotches of bright colors.

"Yeah, for a man who just literally collapsed on the ground in front of me, I'm going to guess you aren't as okay as you say you are." Tony, who had apparently somehow gotten next to him after the fall without Steve noticing, said. "J.A.R.V.I.S, do a scan for all of his injuries, will ya'?" Tony asked and Steve pressed the palm of his hands against his eyelids.

"Tony, no, I'm fine." Steve declared through gritted teeth.

"For a guy who also seems to have a broken leg, several gunshot wounds, and several other injuries, including broken ribs a concussion and a 104.7 degree fever, I'd say you're not fine. J, anything else?" Steve blinked several times, trying to get rid of the blackness in front of his eyes, and when it finally disappeared, he looked up to see Tony's worried and confused gaze looking down at him.

"Are you sure, J.A.R.V.I.S?" Tony asked, but it all seemed so distant. Tony cursed a couple of times before looking back over at Steve. "Cap, is there any way you could have been poisoned?" Tony asked bluntly.

"What?" Steve asked, his mouth unwillingly slurring the single syllable a bit. The room started spinning, but he tried to keep it together.

"Did something happen that could have poisoned you or something?" Tony asked as he gently moved Steve to a position where he could check for his injuries. Steve tried to protest against this, but Tony had just so easily shoved him gently onto the floor.

"Tony, I-I'm f-fine..." Steve unwillingly slurred all of those words, too, as his eyelids tried to flutter close.

"Hey, hey, stay with me, Cap," Tony said as his hands gently ran over his ribs, concern etching his brow as he felt them shift under the slight pressure. Steve winced as he forced his eyes to stay open, ignoring the blissful call of sleep.

"Yeah, you definitely have a few broken ribs, if not all of them. And your leg, God, that looks awful!" Tony exclaimed quietly as his hands glided down to his broken leg. "What did you do?" Tony asked and Steve shook his head.

"Not n'w T-Tony," Steve mumbled, trying to fight off the darkness that so desperately wanted to succumb him.

"Man, I think this looks worse than your broken one," Tony said as he gently rolled up the material on the leg that was clawed by that one robot.

Tony gently prodded the leg with his fingers to check on the swelling, but Steve couldn't feel it. "How badly does that hurt?" Tony asked, looking at him with a inquiring face.

"Wh't do ya' m-mean?" Steve asked, feeling how his throat suddenly felt like the air was being constricted off.

"Can't you feel that?" Steve shook his head. "Oh no," Tony said as a look of realization crossed his face. He suddenly started talking to J.A.R.V.I.S, and Steve found it impossible to listen. His eyes tried to shut, but he refused to let it take him. Yet.

"Steve, remember that poison I was talking about?" Tony asked, but Steve felt too weak to nod, and Tony apparently knew this, because he continued. "It looks like it was injected into your leg somehow, J.A.R.V.I.S said there was a foreign substance in your leg, that appears to be the poison." Tony continued looking at it, and talking quietly to J.A.R.V.I.S, either that or Steve's hearing was messed up. Yeah, probably that. Tony never really talked quietly. Realization washed over Steve and he tried to sit up, only to be carefully pushed back down by Tony.

"H-hydra," Steve tried to say.

"What?"

"Hydra," Steve choked out, the simple act of speaking one word turning into an immensely painful chore. A look of understanding took it's place on Tony's features and he visibly tensed up.

"Hydra did this." Tony confirmed. The poison had to be Hydra's. He had seen them use it multiple times in the war, and knew how fast it killed people; it was mixed up of several poisons like sarin and cyanide.

"R-robot," Steve somehow managed to choke out again. He weakly pointed down to his bloodied leg, and Tony seemed to have gotten the meaning of the action. Steve's eyes started closing, and he found that it took every ounce of strength that he had to keep them squinted open. His body slumped even more as his limbs started going numb.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cap, don't you dare fall asleep, okay? You got it?" Steve tried to nod, but couldn't find any remaining strength to do so. "Medic! I need a medic!" Tony started shouting, but Steve suddenly found it completely impossible to keep his eyes open any longer, and that's when he finally allowed the darkness to succumb him.

* * *

Natasha slowly awoke with a pounding in her skull and pain erupting from her back. She slowly cracked her eyes open, and then they flew open as she tried to remember where the heck she was.

She immediately tried to sit up, but failed in doing so from a bunch of wires and tubes attached to her arms. She looked to her side to see an injured Clint lying on his side in some sort of bed.

Her initial thought was that they were taken captive somewhere, but that was dispersed the moment she saw the S.H.I.E.L.D logo on the side of his bed.

It took her a moment to try and catch her breath, so she took that opportunity to figure what exactly had happened. And the last thing she remembered was Steve trying commit suicide by running into the building with a bomb.

She quickly looked around the room, and didn't see Steve anywhere; fear rushed it's way into her heart. The door creaked open and a young S.H.I.E.L.D nurse walked in.

"Oh, good, you're awake." She said with a smile way too perky for Natasha's liking. Nat just kept on wearing her 'spy' face as Clint called it. "I see that you've-"

"Excuse me," Nat stated firmly, "I'd like to know about Steve Rogers' condition." Nat said and the nurse's expression went totally blank, and it kind of freaked her out. Now Natasha knew how the others felt around her.

"I'm afraid I can not ell you about Rogers' condition. But we can offer you some more food or something to do, or-"

"All I want is to know Rogers' condition. At least tell me if he's all right." Natasha practically pleaded, but still kept her calm demeanor.

"I'm afraid not." The nurse said, before walking back out of the room. Nat sighed in frustration, but really it was just fear of why they couldn't tell her about Steve's condition, or if he was even alive or not.

That thought shook her to the core.

He had to be alive. There was no way he could have died. She sighed as she sagged against the pillow, the pain settling in her bones. She closed her eyes and ignored the little stabs of wetness against the back of her eyes. _Rogers, you better be all right._

* * *

Tony paced the hallways back and forth until he was sure he would wear the floor down. He kept looking up at the door to Steve's hospital room as if to see if anyone would come out and tell him what the heck was going on.

He groaned and raked a hand through his brunette hair as he sat down in one of the super uncomfortable S.H.I.E.L.D hospital chairs.

Tony would never admit it, but the fear he had for Steve right now, was some of the worst he had ever had. Right as Tony had been talking to him, checking his injuries, Cap had started fading fast.

So, Tony called a medic, and that was when Steve had flat lined. It was fairly simple to bring him back to life, even though it was horrifying for Tony, the first time. That's right, the _first_ time.

He flat lined in the building where they found him right in front of Tony and only stayed dead for about thirty seconds. The second time was on the Quinjet, and he stayed dead for two minutes and seven seconds. The third time was when they were going into the hospital, he stayed dead for four minutes and thirty eight seconds. And the fourth, and what they thought would be the final, time he flat lined in the hospital for twenty one minutes.

Excessive, right?

Tony blew out a breath of frustration. Whatever had a hold on Steve wasn't about to relent it anytime soon. What had happened last night with the three of them, Tony wasn't sure about, but he aimed to find answers so he could maybe help Steve. Fury refused to tell Tony anything about it.

Tony looked over to the room right next to Steve's, and saw a nurse walk out with an annoyed look on her face. She had just come out of Natasha's and Clint's room; makes sense.

Tony smirked as he saw the young brunette mumble something to herself as she headed down the hallway.

Tony took this as his opportunity. He jumped up and casually walked over to her, and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Don't frown, darling, or it'll freeze that way," He said with his signature grin. That saying was something he had heard a lot growing up. The look on the young girl's face lightened up a little bit.

"May I help you?" She asked politely.

"Yeah, you can, I'd like to visit my friends, you see they're in that room that you just came out of," The frown returned.

"I'm afraid not, sir,"

"Stark. My name is Stark." Her eyes slightly widened, and he held back a grin.

"As in Tony Stark?" She asked with a shocked smile. If charm doesn't work, use your fame, and if that doesn't work, there's bribery; that was Tony Stark's motto.

"That's the name," The nurse looked around the halls to make sure no one was around to see.

"Okay, I might be able to let you in," She said and he smiled. She walked him over to the door before hurrying off somewhere. He opened it to see Clint sleeping and Natalie sitting there annoyed. Tony knew that look; that was the look that warned you not to tease her or whatever, because you will regret it.

"Hey, Tasha," he said and she looked up as if she had just acknowledged his presence. Something was seriously wrong, because no matter what you couldn't sneak up on the super spy.

"Stark," She mumbled as he took a seat in the chair next to the bed. "What do you want?"

"I think it's probably something we both want; answers. I want to know about what happened on the mission with Steve," Tony said, and at the mention of his name, Natasha perked up.

" _Steve..._ " She said under her breath before directing her attention to Tony. "How is he?" She asked and Tony bit the inside of his cheek while looking down, and of course, Natasha noticed. "Is he..?" Her voice trailed off as she watched him carefully for any more information.

"He was." He stated and her mouth fell open just the slightest. "He flat lined four times. Who knows? Maybe even more." She fell back into the pillows on her bed and looked out ahead of her, but her eyes were glazed over. She lightly shook her head and stammered quietly.

"How is he now?" She asked and Tony sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I honestly don't know. I just know how he was before, and..." His voice trailed off.

"And?" Natasha urged.

"I don't know if I should tell you,"

"Stark, if you don't tell me," She started threatening and he quickly cut her off.

"Hey, hey, hey, I'll tell you, alright?" He said, efficiently cutting her off so she waited patiently. "Listen, nobody else can know about this, okay?" She nodded and he blew out a breath before talking. "He was injured pretty badly when we found you guys, and he looked like he must have been taking care of you guys all through the night, and he had been shot along with other injuries. But the real problem is that Hydra poisoned him." Her eyes widened at his comment.

"Hydra? You mean Hydra was behind all that?" She asked, anger started to seep through the last few words. He nodded and he could practically see the wheels spinning in her head.

"He was in pretty bad shape when we found him, and his injuries were sort of unique for just fighting robots, did anything else happen?" He asked, not bothering to mention the fact that Captain freakin' America died right in front of Tony.

"The bomb. There was a bomb." Intrigued, Tony leaned forward in his chair.

"What bomb?" She looked back at him.

"The fighting with all of the robots was useless. Every time we'd take out five, twenty more would show up. There was a spawner in one of the buildings, but it was impossible to take out enough robots to get in there and destroy it. So we had a backup plan, and that was that if things got to the point where we couldn't fight them anymore, somebody would use a grenade like bomb and go into the building and blow it up. But if you did that, you weren't going to make it back out alive. Steve said he was going to do that." Tony huffed.

"Typical Steve," He muttered.

"We tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. So, we sort of figured that if he was going to do something so _stupid_ ," She said the word bitterly, "We would, too. So we went in with him, much to his dismay, and the last thing I remember was him shoving us out of the building right as it went up in flames." Tony slowly nodded, taking in the newly found out information. That explains the broken leg.

"Do you remember if he could have been shot?" She slowly shook her head.

"No..." She said quietly, trying to think back to the fight. Clint started stirring beside her and both of their attention went to the waking man.

"Wha'?" He asked as he struggled to sit up and open his eyes. He shook his head lightly a few times before opening his eyes and seeing Tony and Tasha in front of him. "What happened?" He asked before rubbing his eyes and then his neck, loosening the tight muscles.

"Robots." Tasha said and Tony watched as Clint's face immediately changed. He started looking around the room frantically.

"Where's Steve?" He asked, panic clear in his voice and evident in his eyes.

"Clint. Clint!" Natasha said, stopping Clint from looking around. He laid back down.

"The bomb..." Clint whispered, some sort of sad acknowledgement in that one word. Tony didn't know what kind of acknowledgement, but Tasha obviously did.

"No, Clint, he isn't." She said, and when the spy looked to the other spy, a bit of joy lightened his eyes, but then was replaced with that same other emotion.

"How is he then?" He asked and she blew out a breath as she went back down on the bed, also, so he could see Tony better.

"We don't know exactly," She said sadly.

"Well, is he going to make it?" Tony sighed.

"The injuries were pretty bad, and then on top of those, he was shot, and then he was poisoned. By Hydra." Tony said, and Clint's fists just basically crumpled the sheets below him as he gathered some of the material in his clenched hand.

"Hydra," Clint said, but to Tony it sounded more like a growl.

"Tony said he flat lined four times," Tasha said quietly and solemnly, and Clint's expression softened.

"I remember..." Clint started saying as he closed his eyes, trying to piece the image together. "I remember being injured, and someone propping me up against a wall, and I also remember Steve picking me up and carrying me to some safe place, but that's all..." His voice trailed off.

"I don't remember anything after the explosion." Tasha said sadly. The door suddenly opened and they all three looked up to see a young doctor looking at Tony.

"Mr. Stark, I'd like to see you outside, please," The doctor said grimly, and they all three had noticed some of the blood that was on his hands. Tony nodded, before getting up and going out the door, but not before sharing a glance with the other two.

When he left the room, he noticed that not only was the doctor that had come into the room, was in there, but Bruce was, too. He casually walked over to them, trying to ignore the huge parts of him that were yelling in fear.

"Yes?" Tony asked as he faced the two grim doctors.

"We need your permission to perform surgery on Mr. Rogers,"

"It appears that the poison is lodged in several of his blood cells, and that there is an exceptional amount of it in his right leg. So, in order to help him fight this off, we need to do surgery, Tony. But this surgery isn't one of our safest ones, so that's why we need your permission." Bruce filled in for him. Tony slowly nodded.

"Do what you got to do. Just help him, that's all I care about right now," The doctor nodded before they both started heading back to Steve's room. Tony grabbed Bruce's arm and stopped him. "How is Steve?" He asked and Bruce shook his head very slowly as he swallowed.

"It's not looking good, Tony," He said before going back into the room. Tony sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He hesitantly went back into Clint and Nat's room, noticing how eerily quiet it was.

He sat back down in the same seat he had earlier and blew out a breath, hoping that no one would ask what the doctor had wanted. But just like all of his other hopes, this one got diminished.

"What did he want?" Clint asked and he suddenly became extremely aware of their eyes burning into him.

"They wanted my permission to operate on him to get rid of the poison. I asked Bruce how Steve was," He paused, tearing his eyes away from their gazes as dread filled him, "He said that it wasn't looking good." Tony said, and you practically cut the tension in the room with nothing more than a piece of paper. That's how bad it was.

Five hours went by before they heard anything. The door opened and Bruce came in this time. Tony immediately stood up to face him.

"Well?"

"We got it out, and he's all right for now," Bruce said and Tony smiled and blew out a breath of relief before sinking back into the chair. "He's still not in too good of shape, and there's one other thing. But the Super-Soldier serum should fight off the rest of the remaining poison.  
He was in and out for the whole thing, no pain killers worked on him so we couldn't numb it."

"And at first things were okay because he was either out of it or his leg was numb.  
But towards the end, he started coming to a little more and since we were removing the poison, the reason for his leg to be numb in the first place, he was able to feel the surgery."

Tony winced from the thought of his friend having to go through that. "He fell unconscious again towards the end, and that's the bad thing. There's a chance he might not wake back up from this one,"

"What?" Clint asked.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked. "Is he in a coma?" Bruce shook his head.

"No, not really. The poison had some sort of effect on his brain, causing problems, but we don't know what exactly they are until he wakes up. But we're not sure if he will wake up, so it is very similar to a coma, but slightly different."

"Since we don't know much about this poison, we aren't sure if his chances of waking up are higher or lower, but I just know that this is a serious situation, and I want you guys to be aware of it."

"If you would like to see him now, Tony, you may." Bruce said before leaving the three of them trying to figure out what the heck just happened. Tony stood up and walked to the door, pausing to give a reassuring smile to Clint and Natasha.

"He'll be fine, guys, remember," He paused and smiled a little more, "He's a fighter." He said before walking out and heading to Steve's door.

He cautiously creaked it open, and froze at the sight before him; Steve, one of his best friends, laying in a white hospital bed with a light blue gown on, and a bunch of tubes hooked up to him.

The room was exceptionally quiet except for the steady beeps of the heart monitor.

Tony couldn't believe the sight before him.

Steve looked just like a young kid, so vulnerable and nieve, looking like he should just be coming out of a college class rather than a battle of robots that almost got him killed.

His hair was messed up and it was sprawled out all over his forehead. Tony took a few small steps closer to the young man, fully aware that the guy was really just a kid; a kid that was thrown into this messed up new world and forced to fight it's enemies.

"Hey, Steve," He said quietly as he took a few more steps closer and ended up next to his bed. Steve's eyes were closed and he looked like he was in a deep, peaceful sleep that he had been needing for a long time. He sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling down at Steve.

"You gave us all quite a scare with this, you know," Tony ignored the waver in his voice and the emotion rising up in his throat.

"I just-I don't know why you had to do this, Steve. I mean, you've got Clint and Natasha, some of the toughest people on earth, in the other room worrying their heads off because you had to be stupid and do one of your idiotic sacrifices!"

"You're just a kid, Steve! And, _damn it_ , Steve, wake up!" Tony ignored the way his voice cracked and broke and how tears were streaming down his cheeks as he looked down at Steve's lifeless body.

He wanted to shake him and yell at him for being so stupid and foolish and make him realize how awful Tony feels right now because of this. But instead, he stood up and paced the room. After a few minutes, when he calmed down, he looked back over at Steve.

"I don't know if you can hear this or not, but Steve," He sighed, "I know we didn't get along very well when we first met, but now I see you as a friend. A good friend. One that understands me and realizes why I'm so arrogant and rude."

"At first when you had found out and realized it, I had been as mad as heck at you, but afterwards, I sort of realized a few things myself."

"I realized you're human just like the rest of us, well, except Thor, I guess. But anyway," He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

"I realized that you feel things, too. It's just, my father compared me to you all my life, and it made me resent you, a lot, and I always blamed you for things, but really I should have blamed my father. It was his fault that he treated me like that, not you." His hands were flying all over the place as he tried to explain everything.

"I guess when he lost you, his life changed and he turned into a jerk. I've always hoped and prayed that I wouldn't turn out like my father, and I never understood why he could be so cold and mean to me.

But now, seeing you like this, and feeling that same helpless feeling my father must have felt when you went under, I'm starting to understand him a little more."

"God, Steve, don't let me turn out like my father, you have to wake up. Please." He pleaded, but there was no answer or sign of Steve being able to comprehend what he was saying. Tony sighed as he walked back over to Steve.

"You're a good friend, Steve, and I'm sorry for anything I've ever done or said, I guess I was jealous." He huffed, but it contained no amusement whatsoever.

"Yeah, me, Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, playboy, and philanthropist, jealous of you. I don't mean that in a bad way, but I mean, come on, Cap, I've always been jealous of you."

"Jealous of your relationship with my father, jealous of how incredibly good you are, and I know I make fun of it, but really I wish I was that way."

"The list could go on forever, but you just needed to know my side of the story, and someday, I hope I can hear your's."

* * *

Natasha groaned from frustration on her hospital bed. "But I'm fine!" She exclaimed and the young nurse just shook his head as he continued going through files on his tablet.

It had been nine days since they had found out about Steve's 'coma' situation and she hadn't been able to see him yet. Everybody; Tony, Thor, Bruce, Pepper, Sam, heck, even Clint was able to visit him.

And he was still injured.

She took a deep breath before grabbing the guy's collar and lifting him up as well as she could from her position of lying on the bed.

"Listen," She paused, looking at his name tag, " _Mark_ , I'm going to see him whether you let me or not, understand?" She asked and he nodded, fear in his eyes as she set him back down. She smirked as she straightened her outfit so she could go visit Steve.

"I'll go tell the doctor," He said before scurrying out of the room. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and slightly winced from the pain in her back where she had stitches.

She ignored it as she stood up, swaying heavily from barely being on her feet at all in the past nine days. She righted herself before walking over to the door and opening it.

She walked out into the hallway and over to Steve's room, where she hesitantly open the door. She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle a gasp.

Steve looked so awful as he laid on the white sheets of the hospital bed. She slowly walked over to him and that's when she saw how battered and bruised he truly was.

"Oh, Steve..." She whispered as she gently stroked some of his blonde hair out of his eyes.

She looked over him, noticing all of the bandages around his beat-up body; and she could only see the top half of him because of the blanket covering him.

But she was thankful she couldn't see anything else. She slowly sat on the edge of the bed, noticing how peaceful he looked, yet his lips were creased in the corner from pain.

"Hey. You look terrible you know that?" She smirked, "The last time I saw you like this was when you got whooped by the Winter Soldier. But I think you might look worse now." She frowned as she took his hand and could feel how limp his hands were.

"You know, Steve, you have no idea how angry and terrified I was when you went in there with the bomb." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I was so horrified at the thought of losing you, I guess I still am."

"But I know you'll make it, because you are a fighter and a winner. I never told anyone this, Steve, not even Clint," She smiled slightly with wet eyes, "And I don't even know if you're listening right now or not, but all that time when we were fighting together in D.C., whenever I would suggest people for you to date, I was really just finding out what your type was."

She chuckled, "And you made it extremely difficult, Steve. Every time I asked you, you'd claim you were too busy!" She laughed quietly as she thought about every time she _had_ asked.

"Sometimes I would get a response from you, but really nothing. I have to admit that, I was just a little, tiny little bit, Steve, jealous over your and Sharon's relationship. Truth is, Steve, I like you, and not really in a friends sort of way."

"I really like you more than a friend." She said and sighed when she saw no reaction whatsoever. It took a lot of courage, more than she would like to admit, to tell him that.

She took one last chance to see if she could bring him out of it; she slowly leaned down and hesitated slightly, but then pressed her lips to his. The kiss was sweet, and yet for some reason it still sent some electricity coursing through her veins.

She pulled away smiling, but frowned when he hadn't shown any signs of awareness. She ignored the tears threatening to spill over as she used the back of her hand to caress his cheek. "Please, wake up." She whispered before she finally broke down.

* * *

For the next two weeks Nat visited Steve everyday, sometimes she would read to him, sometimes play music, and sometimes she would just talk to him about things; and today was that one day.

She sat in the chair next to his bed and just stared out at nothing as she talked about how the past week had been.

"Tony was so mad when Clint beat him on the Xbox, it was priceless! He even threatened to sick his Iron Man suit onto him for beating him!" She said with a laugh before turning solemn and sad again.

She took his hand in hers and played with his fingers, watching how their fingers fit perfectly together.

"I wish you would have been there, so does everybody else. We miss you, Steve. I miss you. Nothing at the Tower is quite the same. Everything is so quiet and nobody really does anything anymore."

"Thankfully, though, we haven't had really any missions since your injury, because I'm certain we'd get killed in an instant without you as our Leader."

"Clint says I should become the Leader if you don't come out of it, which you better by the way, but I don't know. You think I could?" She asked, expecting no response. So that's why she jerked just the slightest when she received one.

"I-I know you c-could," A voice slurred just the slightest. Her gaze jerked up to meet baby blue eyes looking at her with a sparkle in his eyes.

"S-Steve?" She asked as she slowly stood up, afraid she was dreaming or something, but when his hand squeezed hers, she knew it wasn't a hallucination.

"Steve!" She exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around him in a hug, causing him to groan just the slightest. She immediately backed off. "Sorry," She said and he feebly shrugged.

"It's a good kind of pain," He said with that same genuine smile she was used to. She smiled once back before hugging him again, only carefully this time.

She could feel warm tears slowly cascading down her cheeks and when she pulled away she quickly wiped the away and looked down at him; that same happy sparkle in his eyes even though she knew he was in immense pain.

"You're awake, I-I can't believe this." She stammered, more tears streaming down her cheeks. Steve weakly reached a hand up and wiped some of her tears away.

"I'm awake, Natasha," She smiled, but then realized everything she had been saying to him over the past few weeks. "What's wrong?" He asked and she stuttered.

"Nothing's wrong," She lied and he frowned with a raise of his eyebrow.

" _Natasha..._ " He said and she sighed. She nodded slowly.

"Fine. Something is wrong." He waited patiently for her to say something, and after a few moments she took a deep breath before talking. "When you were, 'asleep', could you hear anything that was being said to you?" She asked sheepishly and he sighed while looking down. He swallowed and nodded.

"Yeah. I could." he said and she closed her eyes, realizing what an idiot she had to have sounded like. "God, it was awful," He whispered, catching her attention.

"What?"

"It was so awful," He continued, "Here I was, just lying there, and I had no control of anything whatsoever, but I was aware, very aware of my surroundings, it was like..." His voice faded off and he immediately looked away, closing his eyes.

The pain was so readable on his face no matter how hard he tried to cover it up. Concerned, she placed a hand on his, making him jerk.

"Steve? Steve, speak to me. Please," She begged, but he shook his head. He started mumbling incoherently, but she thought it sounded an awful lot like he was saying, "I can't do it again," over and over. She just barely noticed the tear leak out from under his closed eyelid.

His breathing was sharp and shallow.

"Steve? Steve?" She started saying and immediately went up to get help, but he stopped her by grabbing her hand. Fear rushed through her.

He couldn't even look up as he leaned back against the pillow, holding her wrist. "Steve?" She asked a little quieter this time.

"Panic. Attack." He choked out, and realization washed over her. She quickly started comforting him, trying to get him to breathe with her. Very slowly, his breathing became more normal and he stopped hyperventilating. "I'm sorry," He said, lying as still as a statue with it's eyes closed.

"Don't be. Are you all right?" She asked and he nodded while opening his eyes with a sigh.

"Yeah, I'm all right." After a few moments of silence, she spoke up.

"Um, Steve? How did you know that you were having a panic attack?" He sighed.

"I just knew, I guess."

"Steve, don't you dare lie to me." She commanded and he put his head back with a small groan.

"Nat, I've had them before, okay? I get them a lot." After each of their sudden bursts of slight anger and frustration, the room quieted. She took his hand in hers, trying to offer some comfort.

"Why?" She asked, and that word had so much more meaning to it all of a sudden then it ever had before. He sighed with a small shrug.

"The war. Fighting, waking up in a new world, all sorts of things. Nightmares." Shock rolled over her as she thought about her Captain, a brave leader, dealing with all of this stuff on his own.

"Sometimes it's too much, Nat," He stated, voice barely audible. In fact, she wouldn't have even have heard it if it hadn't been for her incredible hearing.

"Steve, why did you have one now? What did I say?"

"You didn't say anything, Nat. It's just, look, I've never, ever, told anyone this, but," He paused, her anticipation skyrocketing, "I was awake." He said, not meeting her gaze as he spoke. She couldn't stop the small gasp from escaping her lips.

"After the crash, I was sent into some sort of paralysis that was almost identical to what happened with this. I couldn't move, I couldn't even open my eyes, but I knew. I knew what was happening."

"I counted out every day that went by that I was stuck down in that ice. I couldn't do anything, and I knew that all the people I loved were getting older and older everyday, and I didn't know what kind of troubles were happening."

"Heck, I didn't even know if they were still alive or not. I didn't know if we had won the war or not, if Hitler was gone or if America was still there. It was so awful, Nat," He said as he choked on the last few words.

"Oh, Steve," She said as she brought him into a hug, noticing how the tears were coming out of both of their eyes right now. After a few minutes of trying to calm him down, he finally managed to gain enough strength to gently get out of her grasp and lay back down.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking straight." He said, still not meeting her gaze.

"Steve, don't you dare feel sorry about what just happened. Somebody needed to know. You needed to get that off of your chest," He nodded slowly, but still wouldn't look at her, so she took matters into her own hands. She cupped his face and forced him to look at her.

"Now, when you were in this 'coma' like thing just now, you said you could hear me?" She asked and he nodded with a slow smile.

"Yeah, I could." She tried to hide the heat that flamed her cheeks from fear he didn't like her the way she liked him. "That was another thing that annoyed me," He started saying. "I couldn't tell you how I felt," He smiled, "I really like you, too, Nat. I never would have thought you felt the same way about me." He said shyly, with that same boyish grin she loved so much.

"Really? You're not faking this are you? And this isn't the effects of everything that has happened, is it?" He chuckled as he took her hand and entwined his fingers with hers. He shook his head.

"No, Natasha, it's my true feelings. I've liked you all along. That's why it annoyed me so much, I guess, when you kept trying to set me up with a date; you're the only girl I want, Nat." She smiled a watery smile.

"Oh, Steve," She said, voice breaking with those two syllables. She leaned down and captured his lips in another sweet and soulful kiss. She couldn't help but smile against his lips as his hands went up to cup her head and fingers play with her hair.

She gently held onto his wrists and deepened the kiss; loving every moment. Too soon for her, he broke the kiss eventually, but his eyes remained closed as he leaned his forehead to hers.

She, however, had her eyes open and gazed up at the man she loved. Before she could stop herself, three words escaped her lips.

"I love you," She whispered and watched as the corners of his lips twitched and slowly went up in a smile. He opened his eyes and looked down at her.

"Not as much as I love you," He said and before she could protest at the amount she loved him, he caught her lips in another sensational kiss; this one more passionate than the others. She sighed against his lips.

"No way," She murmured against his lips in reply to his earlier statement. She felt his lips turn into a smile against hers and satisfaction and joy take root in her cold and empty heart.

She knew he wasn't completely out of the clear yet, but she knew he'd make it; there was no way he would leave her now.

For once in her life she felt buoyant from joy, but she wouldn't have it any other way. Because for once, they both finally have the happy ending they desired.

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed! Until next time!**


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